NetBio, April 26, 2017
Howe, Gordie
(Gordon Howe), 1928–, Canadian hockey player. Possibly the greatest and most durable forward in the history of hockey, he played (1946–71) for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League (NHL). With his two sons he joined (1973) the Houston Aeros and then (1977) the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association, ending his career in 1980 with the Hartford Whalers of the NHL. Howe’s NHL career records include most seasons (26) and most games (1,767); his career record for most goals (801) was broken by Wayne Gretzky in 1994.
ACT I
IT IS LATE APRIL at the end of the hockey season. Play-offs start in two weeks. Phil Berger is thinking about practice, college, and his girlfriend Roxanne, all at the same time. Earlier in the week, Colby and Dartmouth had both sent him letters about a hockey scholarship. He would have preferred a better school with a better team – like Boston University. But BU hadn’t shown much interest in him, though he’d seen one of their scouts at a game three weeks back. Phil chides himself. Don’t get your hopes up. There are a lot of guys playing hockey these days.
The house is dark, but his mother’s car is in the driveway. The moon mingles the Victorian architecture and shadows of the trees. The result makes him uneasy. There is just enough light for him to find the front door key. Once inside, he turns on the hall light.
Silence.
He can hear breathing in the front room. He walks to the door. The light is behind him and he cannot see anyone. “Mom?” he calls.
The light comes on in the room, and Carol Berger, his mother, pulls her hand away from the lamp.
She hands him a flimsy. Its active surface shows the sports page of the Middlesex News. Phil recognizes Frank Hammett’s byline from previous articles. His mother keeps a scrapbook of every article Phil has ever been in. Phil’s picture leads the text of the article. The headline leaps out at him:
“Clone of Gordie Howe Playing for Hopkinton Hillers.”
Phil chuckles. What a joker. He shakes his head at the thought of it. Phil’s good. But he’s no Gordie Howe.
“Is this the problem?” He holds up the paper. “April Fool’s is a little late this year.”
“You were an in vitro baby,” his mother says slowly.
“What?”
“From neither of us. My eggs were . . . unusable, and your father has the genes for Lou Gherig’s Disease. He didn’t want to saddle any child with that. The embryo was donated. We didn’t know the parents.” She rubs her face in her hands. “We only knew the procedure was subsidized by a rich benefactor.” She looks at him. “We had given up. We didn’t have the money. We were living in New Hampshire, and fertility procedures weren’t covered by insurance. We wanted a baby.”
He shakes his head. “So what? It still can’t be true.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. All I know is, I got a call from two lawyers, one offering to represent us in suing Gordie Howe for compensation and one representing Gordie Howe warning us off. Dr. Robinson called me, too.”
“Robinson?”
“The obstetrician who implanted the embryo.”
“What did Dr. Robinson say?”
“He said he’d been approached by Frank Hammett with some documentation on the ‘irregularities in the implantation procedure.’” She raises a hand and lets it fall in her lap. “ ‘Irregularities.’ ”
Phil tries to make sense out of what his mother is saying.
She stares out the window. “Somebody is taking Hammett’s article seriously.”
More lawyers, publicists, and reporters call in the next week. In Massachusetts, hockey is loved as no other sport. All of Hopkinton is excited at the idea that there might be a budding Gordie Howe in their midst.
Phil’s father, Jake, insists visuals be completely turned off and the audio filtered. He refuses to return calls. Jake has spent his life trying to live correctly, to provide for his son and his wife. He works hard managing the plastics factory near the house, and when he comes home, he leaves technology behind. The Berger house is over a hundred years old and has only the minimum data feeds. Phil has always had to go to the houses of friends for immersion games or wide feeds. Jake spends most of his spare time in the summer working in his garden. In the winter, he spends it in his greenhouse.
Phil doesn’t know what to do with his father. Jake won’t meet his eyes. Jake avoids Phil, even though the house is too small for that. Normally, Jake would be clearing the garden, readying it for the coming spring. It’s a cold April and Phil is worried about him. Jake takes to sitting in the greenhouse, staring out the window. The honey berries will go unharvested. Phil wants to call Roxanne and talk about it, but she is learning French in France for the month and he doesn’t feel like calling overseas.
Besides, he tells himself, he doesn’t really believe it. He thinks this is some strange hoax being played out. He reads up on hockey history and wonders what it would be like to be Gordie Howe.
Response to Hammett’s article forcibly occupies the discussion sections of the local feeds all that week. By Sunday, the tone of the conversation has changed from questioning the ethics of a Gordie Howe clone playing against normal players to how dare Frank Hammett perpetuate such an obvious lie. It does not make any of the regional or national news feeds. Phil is relieved. Nothing is real until it hits the big feeds. Hammett is strangely silent and unavailable for comment. There is speculation that he is being closely questioned on verification of his sources. Hammett’s ambition to be a reporter for the Globe feed is discussed. The old Mike Barnicle scandal is brought up, and one editorial concludes that Hammett will be similarly fired. It looks as if the spotlight has moved from Phil back onto Hammett. Phil is just as glad.
The following Monday night, the Hillers play their next game in Leominster against the Blue Devils. Hammett’s article has had visible effect: the place is mobbed. Phil can’t get in. A lawyer named Dalton threatens him with an injunction and says that he represents Gordie Howe. Unsure of what to do, Jake and Phil back away and leave the rink. However, they park on an adjacent street and sneak in through the back entrance. Neither Phil nor the rest of the team can concentrate on the game. The Hillers founder and lose, four to two.
After the game, cars follow Jake and Phil. Jake takes to the backroads and eventually loses them. Phil wonders who they are. All he saw were people in windbreakers and ski-jackets, wool coats with gloves – their faces could have been anyone’s faces.
When Jake and Phil come in the door, Carol hands them a flimsy of the Boston Globe. The lead article, by Frank Hammett and Carl Weatherspoon, is about the “Gordie Howe Clone.” The article continues, occupying most of the flimsy with a host of associated links. There are several pictures of DNA chromatographs and chromosomes, documenting the similarities between the Howe genotype and that of Phil Berger.
Phil feels as if the world has entered into some long, horrible tunnel. He shakes his head and stares at the pictures. This is his life on display without his permission. No. It’s more than that. He feels naked before strangers. He feels shame without knowing why.
He looks up at his parents. “How did they get this stuff? Don’t they have to . . . to ask permission or something? Don’t I have to sign a waiver? Don’t you have to sign a waiver?”
Jake shrugs. “I don’t know, son.”
The doorbell rings. Outside are four men.
“Shit,” says Jake.
Phil has never heard his father swear.
In the hallway, Jake turns to Phil. “Phil, this is Dr. Sam Robinson. Your mother told you about him. I’m not sure who the other people are.”
Phil recognizes Dalton from the rink. The next two men enter. One is introduced as Dr. Murray Howe, Gordie Howe’s son. Phil needs no introduction to the last man; it’s Gordie Howe himself.
Phil is a big boy. He stands over six feet tall and weighs in at one ninety. He knows he is big; he likes the comfortable feeling it gives him when he walks throug
h a crowd. He likes his own height and heft. When Howe walks in the house and they face one another, Phil suddenly knows it’s true. Howe is pushing ninety, and has shrunk as old men do. Age and punishment have changed Howe but even allowing for that, Phil doesn’t exactly have Howe’s face. It’s Howe’s body that convinces him. Young Gordie Howe shows through his carriage, his battered knees and ankles, his hands as they hang relaxed and ready from the elbow.
Howe’s eyes measure him in return. Phil can see that Howe is convinced as well.
“Did you do it?” Phil asks.
Howe shakes his head. “I have three sons already. I don’t need any more.” He leans his head to one side and looks at Phil critically. “Are you going to claim I’m your father?”
Phil shakes his head in return. “I have a father. I don’t need two.”
The meeting is concluded as far as the two of them are concerned, but they still have to wait for the others. They all sit down in the living room. Howe says very little. Phil and Howe’s attention are on each other.
Robinson explains what has happened. “In 1997, we were approached by the firm Meel and Weed from Detroit. Meel and Weed represented a couple that had been killed in an automobile accident with their embryos still in storage. The common practice at that time was to freeze extra embryos for possible later use or research. The parents of the deceased couple wished to allow the embryos to be used by infertile couples in their children’s memory. All of the participants were to remain anonymous.” Robinson removes his glasses and rubs his nose. “This was not uncommon then and is not uncommon now. In addition, Meel and Weed’s clients were wealthy enough to provide grants for needy couples. New Hampshire did not require IVF insurance coverage then. We checked Meel and Weed’s credentials. We checked with the facility that was storing the embryos. We did not check the clients directly since they wished to remain anonymous but we examined their purported medical records. This is also not uncommon. After we received the embryos, we called the Bergers.”
Robinson looks around the room in silence. “In the last week I’ve found that Meel and Weed’s credentials were a fraud. The facility we checked with does not exist. The credentials of the facility were a sham. I’d never have imagined such a thing. Neither had the Attorney General of Michigan. He is investigating, but after eighteen years, he is not hopeful.”
Carol looks at Howe and Phil. “They don’t look that much alike. Maybe it’s all some scam.”
Robinson nods. “That’s not surprising. In 1999, only the Dolly techniques were available. You have to understand how different a Dolly clone is from the genetic parent. There are three forces that act on the embryo: the non-nuclear contents of the egg itself, the nuclear DNA from both the egg and the sperm, and the developmental environment of the mother. In Phil’s case, only one of those three forces came from Mr. Howe. The remainder came from the unknown egg donor and Mrs. Berger.”
Phil looks up. “Aren’t there other human clones? It’s been seventeen years. I can’t be the first.”
“Good point.” Robinson straightens his glasses. “Cloning still isn’t FDA approved for humans – even now, with modern techniques, there is a very high per centage of birth defects. But so what? Cloning is illegal, but that wouldn’t stop everybody. It’s hard to do even today, but that wouldn’t mean that somebody, somewhere couldn’t afford to do it in a rogue country. But we don’t hear about it. Why not?”
Carol says softly: “Who’s going to take a chance?”
Robinson points to Carol. “Bingo. In the first flush of enthusiasm in the years after Dolly, a few clones were produced.” Robinson closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Phil was one of several clones, most of which were unsuccessful. They started trying to clone humans shortly before Dolly was announced. Children were born without a brain or eyes, or with other forms of brain damage. That stopped human cloning for a long time. People barely take a chance with things like Down’s syndrome, much less something scarier. There were many other legal, safe, and cheap techniques to make babies. Unless, of course, you don’t care how many crippled babies you produce until you get the right one, and you’re powerful, clandestine, and unscrupulous.”
Phil holds his hands in his lap. “Like somebody who might have wanted to clone Gordie Howe, for instance?”
“Exactly.” Robinson smiles thinly. “Of course, things have changed recently. New techniques have been discovered. The debate is starting all over again.”
“Why?” Phil shakes his head, feeling groggy. “Why do it at all? Why do it here? Why Gordie Howe?” He laughs shortly, a sound like a dog’s bark. “This is New England! Why not Bobby Orr? Why not Ray Borque?”
“Who’s Bobby Orr?” Robinson asks.
“Never mind.”
Robinson shrugs and picks up a briefcase he has brought with him. “I have brought with me some sampling equipment. If Phil and Mr. Howe both agree, we can confirm the story one way or the other by morning.”
Afterward, everyone is standing, ready to leave but waiting for Robinson to finish preparing the samples for transport.
An idea occurs to Phil. “Dr. Robinson. How many embryos did Meel and Weed give you?”
Robinson looks up at him from the table, his face suddenly tired. “Fourteen.”
“What happened to them?”
“Two were used in your procedure. The remaining twelve embryos were divided among five other couples.” He pauses, then continues. “Three didn’t implant. One resulted in a miscarriage. There were two live births.”
“Two?” Phil thinks of a brother. Someone with whom he can have this in common.
“Yes. He and his parents live in Nashua.” Robinson stops again. “Oh, hell. You deserve to know. His name is Danny Helstrom. He has one of the worst cases of cerebral palsy I’ve ever seen.”
Robinson calls the next morning. The results are unsurprising. Phil is a clone of Gordie Howe. Phil sits down, feeling depressed, though he expected the results.
There is still nothing about Phil on the national feeds, which makes him sigh with relief. Even a momentary glance from the national media would be make things difficult. The local feeds are also quiet. He hopes it stays that way.
Phil looks outside. The sky is bright and cold, blue as liquid oxygen. He stays home and takes his pond skates down to the lake. Skipping school is a privilege reserved for seniors.
He skates hard: sprint, stop, change direction, sprint, pivot backward, pivot forward. The tension leaves his body. He’s breathing hard, the cold sharp in his mouth and throat, his muscles loose as butter. Without thinking about it, he dodges between the ice fishing holes, skirts the shallows where the ice is thin, through the pipe under the bridge onto the canal feeding the lake.
It’s been a dry, cold winter, and even the canal is rock-hard. He draws his bare fingers across it. The surface freezes to his fingers for a brief moment with a feeling of sandpaper. Then, the sandpaper gives way, and he can feel the smooth solidity underneath. In a rink, this would be perfect hockey ice. This ice isn’t rink-flat, but frozen in bumps and waves. The ground bordering the water is lumpy with sticks and roots, and above him the branches of the trees have a dried, withered look. Around a bend in the canal, the road is out of sight and hearing, and the canal widens into a long pond. Boulders have broken the ice, and he skates between them, backward, forward, jumping over the small rocks. He wonders if he could have been a figure skater – what would Howe have thought of that? It bothers him that Howe’s opinion matters. He wonders what it would feel like to execute a double axel.
He tries to remember how he became interested in hockey instead of any other kind of sport. He can’t remember. He vaguely remembers learning to skate, pushing around an old milk crate and wearing a huge helmet. Then, he remembers being four and skating on the lake, playing pond hockey with older boys.
Phil stops and leans on a boulder in the pond. Sure, most of the other four-year-olds were barely skating, but it hadn’t meant anything to him. It was
like being good at music or math. Just playing the piano didn’t make you Mozart. Just doing arithmetic didn’t make you Einstein. Just playing hockey didn’t make you Gordie Howe. He was always big. Most people had taken him for six when he was four. Besides, the six- and seven-year-old kids he’d been skating with were always better than he was. He had dreamed of playing in the NHL, of being the next Wayne Gretzky or Bobby Orr. Sure. What hockey-playing kid hadn’t? But he hadn’t felt exceptional. Gordie Howe had been truly amazing. Phil wonders if Gordie Howe had ever felt exceptional.
He thinks it’ll be good when Roxanne gets back on Friday. He wonders what she’ll think about dating the clone of Gordie Howe.
Anyone with a camera and a net-feed, professional and otherwise, finds the Berger house that afternoon. Phil doesn’t go outside or answer the door. Phil’s morning had been preserved by a confusion of streets in the online address databases. Instead, a family named Cohen had been harassed for hiding Phil Berger from the world.
Phil’s absence doesn’t stop the commercial media. That night, when the story breaks on the local feeds and broadcasts, Phil sees two students at Hopkinton High School discuss his life in detail on WHDH. Both the principal and vice-principal tell WBZ what a terrific and popular student Phil Berger is. Phil has never met any of them. Noticeably absent from the stories is any human being he actually knows. Grainy videos of him skating shuttle back and forth across the net.
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